11/19/10

Turkey Placemats

I first came across these placemats on examiner.com while I was looking for kids table ideas for Thanksgiving. It was a McCall's pattern, but it looked so simple, I figured I could replicate it without buying the pattern. Then I saw She Wears Flowers version on Ucreate, and it was pretty much identical to the McCall's pattern, so I tweaked her templates to make it easier for me to do! Because these are going on the kids table, I wanted to use a material that would clean easily, so I chose vinyl with flannel backing.

1. Trace template onto flannel portion of fabric and cut out. The templates I provided have separate body and wing portions, you'll want to cut those three pieces out and tape them together to get the full body/wing.

2. Pin small feathers on top of large feathers, and draw diagonal lines where you are going to sew the "feathers".

3. Sew the "feathers", creating pockets for silverware and napkins, starting in the center and working your way out to avoid puckering.

4. Peel the flannel backing off the beak and wattle, it comes off really easily. Once it is off, rub the vinyl with your fingers to get all the little flannel stragglers off.

5. I used hot glue to glue the eyes to the body and the body to the back wings. I recommend a low temp gun, my high temp started melting the vinyl. I used tacky glue or craft glue to glue the beak and the wattle down.

6. To get the grayish body outline, I traced the body template onto the body with a dry erase marker, let it dry and then rubbed it off, it left a nice light stain, just as I hoped!

**Forgive me, I'm so computer illiterate! When you get into the google document, click on the template, and when the picture comes up, click on the picture, then print at 105% to make it the right size! I seriously need to figure this out! I'm going to have my sweet hubby try to fix it when he gets home!**

These were seriously so quick and easy to make, a perfect last minute addition for your kids table!